138 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



and her whole body swaying in a measured way from 

 side to side. If the insect happens to be a foot or 

 two above the ground, in a tangle of bramble and 

 bracken, with other plants with slender stems and 

 deep-cut leaves, the appearance is singularly beautiful. 

 The light looks as if enclosed within an invisible 

 globe, which may be as much as fifteen inches in 

 diameter, and within its circle the minutest details 

 of the scene are clear- to the vision, even to the finest 

 veining of the leaves, the leaves shining a pure trans- 

 lucent green, while outside the mystic globe of light all 

 is in deep shadow and in blackness. 



With regard to the attitude of the glow-worm when 

 displaying its light, we see how ignorant of the living 

 creature the illustrators of natural history books have 

 been. In scores of works on our shelves, dating from 

 the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the glow- 

 worm is depicted giving out its light while crawling 

 on the ground, and in many illustrations the male 

 is introduced, and is shown flying down to its mate. 

 They drew their figures not from life, but from speci- 

 mens in a cabinet, only leaving out the pins. But 

 the glow-worm is not perhaps a very well-known 

 creature. A lady in Hampshire recently asked me 

 if it was a species of mole that came out of its run 

 to exhibit its light in .the darkness. The insect in- 

 variably climbs up and suspends itself by clinging to 

 a stem or blade or leaf, and the hinder part of the 

 body curls up until its under surface, the luminous 



